The Chinese Approach To Web Journalism: A Comparative Analysis

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THE CHINESE APPROACH TO WEB

JOURNALISM:

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

by

Jing Xin

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in

Media and Communication

School of Social and Political Sciences

University of Canterbury

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Abstract

This thesis explores the distinctive forms of journalism that have emerged in mainstream news websites in mainland China. Two case studies, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, are employed to identify features in Chinese and Western news online. Specifically, a comparison is made between the in-depth news sections of popular mainstream news websites in China and those in the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The study finds that the Chinese version of mainstream web news genre differs significantly from the Western version. This thesis argues that journalists’ practice is strongly context dependent. Distinctive economic, organizational, social and cultural factors contribute to shaping Chinese web journalism in a way that contradicts the notion of a homogeneous worldwide journalism or of a single set of norms for journalism. The study challenges the dominance of the political explanatory framework that considers political factors as the most important approach to study Chinese web-based media. In the face of a sparse literature and sporadic studies concerning the development of the internet as a novel platform in China for news production and transmission, this thesis aims to bring more academic interest to an overlooked research area and to contribute to a broader understanding of the actual diversity of global communication research.

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Acknowledgements

It is my great pleasure to gratefully acknowledge the people who made this thesis possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my senior supervisor, Dr. Donald Matheson, for his valuable guidance and mentoring throughout my PhD study and research. He patiently put up with my endless questions and offered insightful suggestions that really helped me in developing this study. His thoughtful input and encouragement at each step, through numerous stimulating conversations and timely feedback, were indispensable to the successful completion of this thesis. I am also indebted to my associate supervisor, Dr. Mohammed Musa, for his enthusiasm, inspiration, and efforts to explain things clearly and simply.

I also would like to thank the staff in the Media and Communication Programme at the University of Canterbury, who all assisted me in one way or another during my PhD research. Specifically, I would like to thank Associate Professor Jim Tully, head of the School of Social and Political Sciences. He put in countless hours ensuring that we PhD students had everything we needed to succeed. Sincere gratitude also goes to Linda Jean Kenix and Babak Bahador for listening closely to my presentations and giving wise advice for this research project. I am also grateful to the administrators, Pat Ydgren and Denise Forbes, for helping me with various applications. I also wish to thank my fellow students in the department, Julie Xu, Tina Ban, Shao Wei, and Foong Lian Hah, for their stimulating discussion, continuous encouragement, and for all the fun we have had in the last few years.

Heartfelt gratitude also goes to my beloved family, my parents, Xin Zhiqiang, Liu Yuling, and in-laws, Yuan Yelin, Yin Huilan, for their love, encouragement, and unconditional support. I am also deeply indebted to my beloved husband, Yuan Ye, who introduced me the beautiful country of New Zealand and the lovely University of Canterbury and who supported and accompanied me during my study in New Zealand.

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1. Introduction

As the fastest growing medium ever recorded, the internet, particularly the World Wide Web, has offered spectacularly different means for collecting, producing, organizing and disseminating information. Expectations are high concerning the internet’s potential to transform the journalistic world. Media scholars since the mid-1990s have embraced the promise of an “age of the net” (Heinonen, 1999), “a whole new journalism” (Quittner, 1995), an “annotative journalism” (Paul, 1995), as well as an innovative “future of journalism” (Pavlik, 1997). Numerous theoretical frameworks and empirical studies have then followed to closely explore journalistic practice online. Within the ever-increasing literature and research on web journalism worldwide, it deserves to be noted that the US- and UK-based academic studies actually far outweigh studies of anywhere else, such as Asian, African, and Pacific nations. Indeed, in most forms of media, the models and theories that prevail in Western Europe and North America tend to be dominant around the globe (Hallin and Mancini, 2004). The key strain of global communication, according to Hall, remains “centered in the West and it always speaks English” (1991: 28). The concentration of media scholarship on a few nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, indeed ignores the real diversity of world media systems. As there is growing discussion on the practice and impacts of the internet as a flourishing global media, I advocate that “no global media outlet can be considered truly ‘global’, if it fails to reach a quarter of the world’s population” and the global communication system would remain “a far-fetched myth without China’s involvement and full commitment” (Shi, 2005: 33). Therefore, this thesis is an attempt to contribute to the diversity of the global communication study by analyzing Chinese1 mainstream web journalism in a global context.

Purpose of the study

1_{Throughout this thesis, “China” or “Chinese” refers to mainland China or the mainland Chinese, unless} specified otherwise.

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This research was mainly triggered by a disappointed experience when using the well-known academic database Web of Science2 to search for essays on Chinese news media. By the end of 2007, there were 4017 results on the database for the term “news media” alone, compared with only 55 results or 46 results when “China” or “Chinese” were added in the search box. The sharp contrast also occurred when searching “internet + media” and “internet + media + China”—yielding 3743 results and 37 results respectively. A piece of empirical research conducted by Kluver and Yang (2007) also confirms the sparse academic interest in Chinese internet-based media (this will be discussed more in the literature review). In contrast to the limited academic interest in web-based media in China, recent statistical reports have shown an undisputed huge potential for the online media market in China. There has been an exponential increase in the number of Chinese internet users in recent years. By the end of June, 2008, the overall number of netizens3 in China was 253 million, surpassing the netizen population of the US (218 million by the end of 2007), taking China to first place in the world in numbers (CNNIC, July 2008). By 31 December 2009, the overall number of netizens in China had increased to 384 million, with 90.1 percent of them broadband internet users (CNNIC, January 2010). The sparse academic interest and the considerable potential of the Chinese internet market have made China a promising site in the field of web journalism studies.

The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to present a thorough understanding of mainstream web journalism in China. The object of this research is mainstream web news, which consists of mainstream news websites providing a selection of editorial news content, be it transferred from traditional media or originally generated for the web. By “mainstream”, I emphasize the news material created by journalistic professionals who work for mainstream-oriented news organizations that have a sizeable audience base. In particular, this research aims to identify essential elements

2_{Web of Science is a prominent online academic database provided by Thomson Scientific. Its database covers} over 10,000 leading journals in science, technology, social sciences, arts and humanities as well as international coverage for over 120,000 conferences. The search’s date range was “1900-1914 to 2007”.

3_{According to the semiofficial China Internet Network Information Centre’s (CNNIC) report, the term netizen} refers to any Chinese citizen aged 6 and above who have used the internet in the past half a year.

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that constitute the mainstream web news genre and thus to propose some distinctive characteristics of Chinese mainstream web journalism by comparing those elements with those of web news in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. In short, the research is mainly focusing on three aspects, namely, feature characterization, feature comparison and context interpretation.

Theoretical foundation

This study has incorporated a wide range of prevailing theoretical frameworks to examine the features of mainstream web journalism in a global context. The essential theoretical foundation lies in the literature on digital media and journalism online. Lievrouw and Livingstone’s (2002) three-element framework of new media research serves as an overarching structure for this study. Three aspects, namely, “the artefacts or devices that enable and extend our ability to communicate”, “the communication activities and practices we engage in to develop and use these devices”, and “the social arrangements and organizations that form around these devices and practices”, are crucial to any research concerning the new media, according to Lievrouw and Livingstone (2002: 7). In terms of this study, the utilization of artefacts or devices of the web-based media within various contexts are the main objects of the research. A traits-based approach is employed to analyze the most discussed features of the internet media—the multimediality, interactivity and hypertextuality of news online. Moreover, Lievrouw and Livingstone’s theory has sensitized researchers to the interdependence between media technologies and social elements, which is the focus of this thesis. The contextual factors that shape the development of journalism online are explored in this study with the help of genre analysis. Genre theory, especially genre analysis in the field of computer mediated communication, is applied in this research to identify contextual meanings of genres and position them within their social and cultural circumstances. How the mainstream web news genre defines, organizes and finally communicates with various social realities is the essential concern.

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On the basis of the overall theoretical structure above, a good many specific theoretical frameworks are employed in this research to help with the analysis in specific dimensions. As to the multimedia news content, a key concept is the “multimedia news package” that goes beyond mere technical or format combinations (Deuze, 2003; Zerba, 2004). It is claimed to be a thoughtful media strategy to fulfil some of the medium’s potential in producing accurate, up-to-the-minute, contextual and complete news stories (Kawamoto, 2003). In terms of interactivity, which is perhaps the most discussed feature of the online environment, a helpful and generally agreed method is to conceptualize interactivity through the distinction between medium interactivity and human interactivity. The approach of inactive and active interactivity proposed by Hong et al. (2008) is at the core of this dimensional analysis. In addition to this general framework, I advocate conceptualizing interactivity as a multidimensional construct with a series of interactive features facilitating online news. Heeter’s (1989) six-dimensional construct of interactivity is employed in this phase of analysis to explore specific components or categories of interactive features. The six dimensions of interactivity, 1) complexity of choice available, 2) efforts user must exert, 3) responsiveness to the user, 4) ease of adding information, 5) monitoring information use, and 6) facilitation of interpersonal communication, are widely valued in research for their well-defined explication and practical nature. In terms of hypertextuality, three aspects, namely, context-provision, non-linear approach and different uses of internal and external hyperlinks are crucial with regard to the role of hypertextuality in web journalism. It might be interesting to examine the availability of “self-conscious” hypertextuality and “seamless” intertextuality (Mitra and Cohen, 1999), the blur of different types of news and different genres of news (Bardoel, 2002), and the use of external links to open up new contents (Deuze, 2001). Besides the three novel traits of internet-based media, one more aspect that deserves attention here is the research on textual news online. Despite the increasing popularity of multimedia and interactive news on the web, it is an undisputed fact that news in written texts is and will still be the essential component of web journalism. Hence, it is worthwhile including textual news analysis in this study. Various dynamics in the

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news flow, such as the number of news stories, story length, news topics, sources, updates, balance, variety, contexts, and comprehensiveness are the essential elements under study. Rivenburgh’s (2004) summary of variations found in previous empirical research on Olympic coverage is quoted as the theoretical foundation for the Beijing Olympic news coverage analysis in the first case study and the five-dimensional framework of risk-related news coverage proposed by Dudo et al. (2007) is employed in the second case study of swine flu news analysis.

Method of the study

It is widely noted that the field of digital media is characterized by constant changes and rapid innovations. Considering the ever-changing nature of the research objects, this study mainly adopts a qualitative approach, rather than a quantitative method that relies considerably on inert statistical data. Three different but closely related methods, namely, genre analysis, comparative analysis and case studies of news events, are employed in this study to explore the distinctive features of mainstream web journalism in China. As mentioned above, genre analysis is a useful theoretical lens for presenting an integrated view of web news features and web news developments within their circumstances. Through comparative analysis between Chinese and Anglo-American web news genres, this thesis attempts to explore the distinctiveness of Chinese web journalism. The comparative design among “most different systems” is the main methodological principle in this research project. My choice of Anglo-American countries, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, is because they are alike in terms of social and media systems, whereas the case of China is expected to be significantly different from them. The case studies of news events provide valuable opportunities for the researcher to make a close examination of the journalistic practice and production. Owing to their significantly different natures, the two news events under study, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, are capable of assisting the exploratory multiple-case study to deliver a more broadly illuminative conclusion.

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Significance of the study

As introduced above, there is a sparse literature and sporadic studies concerning the development of the internet as a novel platform in China for news production and transmission. Thus, this thesis is an attempt to bring more academic interest to an overlooked research area and to contribute to a broader understanding of the actual diversity of global communication research. Moreover, this study is distinctive in attempting to study features of Chinese mainstream web journalism via comparative case studies across four countries. Abandoning the widely employed content analysis, this research applies digital genre analysis to examine the news production and dissemination online within different contexts. The focus of this thesis is on analysis of web journalism at the micro levels, including not only widely discussed aspects, such as multimedia, interactive and hypertextual news content, but also the frequently neglected textual news online. The study challenges the dominance of the political explanatory framework that considers political factors as the most important approach to studying Chinese media. In this thesis, all possible influencing factors, ranging from the political and economic to the social, cultural and historical factors, are taken into consideration when explaining the distinctiveness of Chinese web journalism and analyzing the further implications. Given the considerable potential of the Chinese web-based media market and the imperative importance of understanding other cultures and societies in the digital era, this research would to some extent, offer benefits in understanding the world’s media system and illuminate emerging trends in the field of web journalism.

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2. Literature Review

The popularization of the internet and expansion of the web have offered the richest and most complex communication environment that has ever existed. Internet networks possess the ability to remediate all existing media forms into one platform (Bolter and Grusin, 1999). As a consequence, questions of the new possibilities and the impact of cyberspace on news production and dissemination have developed in abundant theoretical discussions and empirical research. Early studies on web journalism have constructed a good many ideal models and have optimistically envisioned a rosy future of “a whole new journalism” (Quittner, 1995). These ideal proposals mainly focus on the use of “artefacts or devices” within news websites that “enable and extend our ability to communicate” (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2002: 7), such as artefacts facilitating multimediality, interactivity, and hypertextuality. In particular, Fagerjord’s (2003) “rhetorical convergence”, Zerba’s (2004) “multimedia news packages”, Hong et al.’s (2008) model of inactive and active interactivity, Heeter’s (1989) six-dimensional construct of interactivity, Pavlik’s (2001) “contextualized journalism”, and Mitra and Cohen’s (1999) “self conscious hypertextuality” and “seamless intertextuality” are discussed in this chapter. Holding out the possibility of a more attractive, informative and comprehensive journalism, these utopian proposals are helpful in delineating the potential innovative trajectory of online journalism and thus are of great value to this study. Nevertheless, due to their underlying “technological determinism”, the first wave of ideal proposals has been criticized for neglecting social, cultural and economic contextual factors that influence how and to what extent journalists use new technologies (Boczkowski, 2004a). Empirical research later on has offered evidence that the development of those ideals in news websites tends to be limited. Various contributing factors, such as economic, journalistic and audience-related issues, have been discussed in the research literature to explain the slow adoption of the internet’s attributes at mainstream news websites. On the basis of both previous literature and empirical

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research on web journalism, this thesis mainly focuses on the “communication activities and practices” that online journalists “engage in to develop and use” those communication devices (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2002: 7). Moreover, Lievrouw and Livingstone propose that “social arrangements and organizations that form around these devices and practices” require investigation in any research concerning the new media (2002: 7). In this study, particular attention has been devoted to online journalistic values as well as economic, social and cultural implications. Presented at the end of the literature review are summaries of some limitations of previous empirical studies (e.g. a lack of historical perspective and comparative approach) and a call for useful alternative approaches to study web journalism globally.

Much of the analysis in this thesis on Chinese web journalism is based on the Western theoretical framework and I should explain the motivations for doing so. The most direct reason is that, to date, there has been only sporadic literature on the web-based media in China, as is made evident in the following paragraphs. The lack of specific theoretical models on Chinese web journalism makes it necessary for this study to begin from the prevailing Western theoretical frameworks. Some might query the applicability of Western models to the Chinese case. However, I argue against the criticism of “inapplicability” on three levels. Firstly, the nature of this thesis determines that it would be not a big problem applying Western models to examine the Chinese case. This research mainly focuses on the use and presentation of the internet’s attributes at mainstream news websites. Most Western theoretical frameworks in this regard can be fitted into such a technology-media research design. Of course, it can be expected that minor adaptations and combinations would be needed for the specific analysis. Secondly, it is exactly the question of to what extent the prevailing Western model of web journalism studies can be well applied into Chinese context that calls for more academic attention. Following the literature on new media and internet journalism, this thesis advocates refocusing the analytical lens for studying web journalism to closely examine Chinese journalism online. Particular attention would be devoted to the inconsistency between Western and Chinese

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expectations and experience. Thirdly, many (e.g. Boczkowski, 2004b; Oblak, 2005; Hermida and Thurman, 2008) reveal that research conducted within the Western context also encountered problems when employing the prevailing theories proposed by the literature. Thus, implications and underlying rationales behind the inapplicability have attracted much academic interest and resulted in a number of empirical studies (e.g. Paterson and Domingo, 2008; Paulussen and Ugille, 2008). It is my interest to explore the contributing factors to the inconsistency that exists both between theory and practice as well as between Chinese and the Western journalistic practice. In short, the literature review here is to assist in selecting helpful theoretical frameworks for web journalism studies globally and seeking for reasonable rationales that explain factors shaping the development of web journalism.

2.1 Literature review on internet-based media in China

This section concentrates on the literature about internet-based media in the context of China. The review here finds limited scholarly work focusing on internet-based media in China. The political-economic discourse dominates the related literature, while the social, cultural and historical contexts of China are largely neglected within the limited scholarship. To date, there have been sporadic studies concerning the development of the internet as a novel platform in China for news reporting and transmission. The call for alternative approaches focusing on web-based media in China is imperative.

2.1.1 Sparse literature on internet-based media in China

Generally speaking, China is a rarely studied case within media scholarship. It is noted that analyses of changes in mass media systems have been inclined to draw upon Western media frameworks. The media models and theories that prevail in Western Europe and North America tend to be dominant around the globe (Hallin and Mancini, 2004). Within the limited scholarly work on Chinese media, much attention has been paid to print and broadcasting news media and the journalists they employ

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(e.g. Polumbaum, 1990, Chen and Lee, 1998; Pan, 2000; Pan and Lu, 2003). To date, little attention has been devoted to online news products in China or Chinese online journalists, despite the fact that the internet is a fast growing news market (He and Zhu, 2002; CNNIC, 2010). Kluver and Yang’s (2005) meta-review across various disciplines on the issue of the internet in China has revealed the gap in academic analysis. Drawn from an extensive bibliography of academically oriented research on the internet in China published since 1990, their study shows the academic interest on this issue peaked in 2000, with 34 separate papers. After 2000, publication began to decrease dramatically. The concentration of media scholarship on a few nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, actually ignores the real diversity of world media systems. As Curran and Park point out, American and British media academics “are beginning to feel embarrassed about viewing the rest of the world as a forgotten understudy” (2000: 3). Hughes and Silverstone note that some changes are required, “given the new role that China must play in international affairs” after entering the World Trade Organization (WTO), and “given the increasingly vital importance of understanding other cultures and societies in a post-September 11 World” (Hughes and Silverstone, 2002: 139).

2.1.2 Heavy emphasis on political-economic implications

Within the limited academic work on internet-based media in China, the political-economic perspective has overwhelmingly dominated analysis. The development of information communication technologies (ICTs) has made it possible for more information and resources exchange and has created new platforms for constructing arguments. As such, it is argued that burgeoning communication and coordination via internet networks have accelerated globalization so as to erode boundaries and undermine the capacity of national control over information flows. In view of these revolutionary communication forces, there has been a proliferating academic interest in the expansion of and the consequences of the internet in China. Particular attention has been devoted to the political and economic implications of digital media technology. In his book titled The internet in China: Cyberspace and

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civil society, Tai (2006) even claims that any study of the internet and ICTs in China is

incomplete, if it fails to assess the bureaucratic regulatory apparatuses that closely link to the party-state’s political control. Many see China as an ideal site for testing the assumption that the internet is an important democratizing force.

Public sphere and civil society

Drawn from the internet’s transformative ability to transcend time and space, intense debates have evolved on conceptions of the public sphere and civil society. Acclaimed as the basis of democracy, the “public sphere” has been utilized to assess the impact of the ICTs on Chinese revitalization of civil society. As widely acknowledged, a very influential conceptualization of the public sphere is based on ideas expressed in Jürgen Habermas’ book The structural transformation of the public sphere: An

inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (1989). This work has widely been

acknowledged as the foundation of contemporary public sphere theories. According to Habermas, the public sphere mediates between the “private sphere” and the “sphere of public authority”:

The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.

(Habermas, 1989: 27)

Following Habermas, scholars have extended the conception to propose that every modern society has a public sphere to some extent. For Kraus (2000), “public sphere” can be defined as a collection of ideas and information accessible to broad sectors of society. Hauser conceives “public sphere” as “a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment” (1998: 86). Based on the more general conceptual framework of “public sphere”, academics expect that the growing use of the internet

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as a communication and socialization tool in China, would provide “new resources that at least have the potential to establish a more open and reasonable public sphere” (McCormick and Liu, 2003: 140) and offer “a new line of hope to empower Chinese civil society in an increasingly networked world” (Tai, 2006: 80). Moreover, Kluver and Qiu (2003) expect the internet to be an essential driving force in the dismantlement of the Chinese state apparatus of social control. Along similar lines, Akhavan-Majid (2004) contends that the internet has largely liberalized the nature of information dissemination in China. News, particularly the big news events, can be spread very quickly to an ever wider audience base and lead to more (and often diversified) sources. The surging public interest aroused by the huge amount of information usually generates vigorous discussion by the public. Many (e.g. Fravel, 2000; Tai, 2006) support this point of view, claiming that the internet has reduced the public’s reliance on a few conventional media for information and has lessened the government’s ability for agenda setting. The single-source news is largely replaced by multiple source news with the facility of the online platform. Even though it may be too optimistic to declare the complete “democratization of information” or the “decentralization of information” in the case of China, some empirical studies at least suggest the positive role of the internet in supporting civil society. Tai’s (2006) case study reveals that the internet has become an empowering tool for Chinese civil society in the field of social movements. The internet, according to Tai (2006), allows the creation of a transformative platform for public communication and discourse and thus expands the scope of public communication through its speed and reach.

Censorship and regulations

Emphasis on the issue of censorship and governmental regulations on the internet has been extremely intense in the case of China. Scholarly works as well as articles usually underscore strategies of how the Chinese authorities control cyberspace, ranging from legislative laws, coercive operations to technological implementations and so on (e.g. Hachigian, 2001; He and Zhu, 2002; Wacker, 2003; Yang, 2003). It is claimed that the Party-state is fostering the growth of the internet and simultaneously

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weaving a web of regulations to constrain information regarded as harmful. Hachigian has summarized the strategy of Chinese government towards the internet as “providing economic growth and some personal freedoms, managing the Internet’s risks, and harnessing its potential” (2001: 118). To extend this point of view, Tai argues that though the Chinese government has warmly embraced ICTs and the information era, it does not necessarily mean that the Chinese authorities are willing to “let the liberating and free-wheeling spirit of the Internet run its own course” (2006: 97). Websites that were “deemed politically, ideologically and morally undesirable were blocked at the national gateways” (He and Zhu, 2002: 126). There are policies and regulations aiming at “ensuring the smooth flow of information, preventing external interference, protecting the national industry and the exercise of state sovereignty” (He and Zhu, 2002: 128). By gaining the economic benefits while suppressing the internet’s potential to challenge the government, the Chinese leadership believes that “a well-developed and well-regulated Internet can work to its advantage in strengthening its grip on power and its capacity to win popular support” (Tai, 2006: 97).

It seems that in terms of the forces regarded as influencing online communication in China, scholars above highlighted the political aspect as the most immediate and noticeable dynamic in the Chinese online environment. The Chinese regulatory context appears in the literature to be the most important shaping factor that makes Chinese online environment different to other places. Such a discourse neglects the fact that “all political regimes engage in some forms of censorship” (Deibert, 2003: 506). According to Deibert (2003), state censorship is widely seen in Asian and European countries; some aggressive content filtering systems have been adopted in Arabic and Islamic regimes to block both pornographic sites and political websites; and electronic surveillance exists in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. It would be difficult to find any state around the globe that does not see the necessity of regulating certain aspects of digital communication, despite that there do exist radical proponents of “digital libertarianism” who advocate

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completely unrestrained freedom of activity on the internet (Wacker, 2003). Deibert reminds those interested in global democratic governance to “think seriously about the security and design of the communications infrastructure as a constitutive force and material reality” (2003: 504). Therefore, the view that considers China’s distinctiveness only in political terms neglects both the presence of censorship elsewhere and other crucial aspects of the web news genre in China.

Another widely discussed factor that greatly influences the online communication in China is the commercial or economic. Scholarly interest has concentrated on how online media adapt to the competitive market in the context of economic globalization. Dai (2002) argues that China’s status as a developing country has not prevented the Chinese government from taking effective steps to embrace the opportunities and challenges of ICTs; indeed, China is moving towards a digital economy with Chinese characteristics. The Chinese characteristic, as discovered from many economic-based articles, is too often interpreted in terms of political-economic power. The significant commercialization process of the media sector has been noticed by a good many studies (e.g. Chen, 1993; Huang, 1994; Chu, 1994; Zhao, 1998; Lee and So, 2001; Lee, 1994, 2000, 2003). Among those scholarly researchers, some doubt and question the necessary or logical relationship between Chinese economic liberty and media freedom in China (e.g. Heuvel and Dennis, 1993; Yu, 1994); some believe the development in the economic and media sectors would eventually contribute to a transition to democracy in China (e.g. Lee, 1994; Pei, 1994; Huang, 2001). The discourse revealed by those articles suggests that “control over communication is a crucial concomitant of political-economic power” (Schiller, 2005: 79). Much has been written about whether and how the state controls the internet media in a competitive digital market (e.g. Polumbaum, 1994; Chen, 2003; He, 2003). There are also articles elaborating theoretical frameworks that explain the interaction between the state and the media sector in the digital economy (e.g. Lee, 2000). Some consider the media reform as a reinforced controlling power of the media through state and market censorship (Zhao, 1998), while some firmly believe the increasing commercialization

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of the media system would deprive the Party of its monopoly on media and the Chinese state would have “lost control of the mass media” (Pei, 1994: 177). To a certain extent, the two branches seem to “have exaggerated the case and provided little solid evidence” (Huang, 2007: 403). The case of control is over stated and other influencing factors, such as social, cultural and technological aspects, have been overlooked.

To sum up, with regard to the review of literature on the internet-based media in China, it is evident that much Chinese media literature seems strongly “control” focused and too often judges from a political or political-economic perspective. Heavy emphasis has been placed on the interaction between internet media and the authoritarian party-state or between the global internet market and government control. A vast body of literature actually falls into two general theoretical models: “dissident vs state” (or “democracy vs control”) and “market vs state”. In light of the first framework, heated debates exist around tensions between the freedom-seeking online media (and/or internet users) and the party-state. The Chinese government is often portrayed as enthusiastically promoting the spread of internet use while keeping a rigid control over online communications. Therefore, the tension between freedom-seekers and controlling government attracts much interest among observers. Drawn from the relevant literature, the answers to whether the internet serves as a transformative power in democratization and in civil society seem to be ambivalent. The relatively short history of the internet and the lack of sufficient empirical evidence make it hard to clarify the ambivalence (Yang, 2006). Scholars are some way from agreeing upon on the internet’s liberating role in the case of China. The “market vs state” scenario has described the Chinese government as a monolithic entity intent on development of the telecommunications and internet infrastructure to develop China’s economy, while gripping tightly onto the online media communication and political superstructure.

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and practicality of the above framework in the context of China. I deeply doubt the scenario that the predominant debates draw upon is compatible with China’s circumstances. The political explanatory framework should not be considered as the only, and in most conditions, even superior perspective in studies of Chinese media. Derived largely from the Western historical experience of shifting from authoritarian to liberated press systems, the “dissident vs state” model views the transformative development of China’s internet media in terms of “an ongoing adversarial struggle between freedom-seeking dissidents and authoritarian governments” (Akhavan-Majid, 2004: 554). Yin (2008) questions the applicability of the libertarian theory in the Asian media context, when taking into consideration Eastern and Western philosophical thinking and cultural values. Furthermore, the “market vs state” model leads some authors simply considering the state’s role as running commercialized media within its “orbit” (e.g. Gordon, 1997; Zhao, 2000). As Downing (1996) puts it, Western media theories are evolved from and are used to explain a relatively stable political economy. Thus Western media theories seem to “take for granted capitalistic democracy as a static backdrop for media dynamics” (Ma, 2000: 31). As noted, the reconfiguration of the Chinese media and abrupt changes in Chinese society contrast sharply with the situation in the West. The established model of global media studies is probably not fully compatible with Chinese social and media reality. Concepts in Anglo-American paradigm like “liberalism, conservatism, political right, middle and left, public interests, democracy, rights, freedom and individualism are very different from a Chinese perspective” (Hu, 2007: 338). In addition, Huang (2007) argues that the highly political approach is of limited use in the Chinese context and sometimes even misleading by simplifying the media transformations. In the eyes of the mass audience in China, the adoption of the web-based media is a part of the media transformation and indeed it may simply mean “a more accessible, participative and enjoyable media experience in a competitive and diverse media communication market, and not necessarily linked to an ultimate political-ideological end meaning” (Huang, 2007: 404).

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2.1.3 Neglect of social, cultural and historical factors

Drawn from the above discussion, it is worth noting that social and cultural perspectives have been largely neglected in much academic work concerning issues of the internet in China. A few scholars have acknowledged the gap and point out the problem. Hughes and Silverstone, editors of the journal New Media and Society, address this in their themed section on “The internet in China”:

Much has been written about China’s eccentric and intrusive relationship to new media. Much of that writing has been of the knee-jerk variety, lambasting a society for its refusal to accept the openness of the technology. It has also generally been empirically uninformed. Neither the history nor, broadly speaking, the sociology of China has been effectively mobilized in the analysis of the particular dynamics of innovation in this area.

(Hughes and Silverstone, 2002: 139)

Echoing Hughes and Silverstone’s contention, one empirical study has effectively shown the unbalanced trend amongst studies of the internet in China. Kluver and Yang’s (2005) content analysis, as mentioned earlier, indicates that the greatest attention has been paid to two fields: authoritarian control of the internet and the development of the telecommunications and internet infrastructure in China. Kluver and Yang point out that “given the emphasis on China, issues of political control figured in almost all of the articles, including those articles concerning infrastructure development and industry regulation”, while nonpolitical aspects of Chinese society remain virtually unexplored among scholarly studies (2005: 303). It seems that the dominant analytical model tends to mask a number of significant dynamics unique to Chinese culture, history and society. Taking the cultural perspective as an instance, the cultural model of collectivism-individualism (Hofstede, 1980; 1991) might be valuable for a number of media studies, especially comparative studies between Asian and Western contexts. As widely noted, the foundation of Chinese culture is Confucianism. Being an integral part of daily life and a source of social norms, Confucianism glorifies collectivism, which calls for a favouring of state or group

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interests over individual interests and desires (Triandis et al., 1988). In contrast, most Western countries, the US as a representative, are often characterized by individualism, which implies that each person is a unique entity separate from the group (Hall, 1976; Spence, 1985). By acknowledging the cultural difference, researchers might be able to design more interesting empirical studies as well as to deliver more fruitful results.

Some have acknowledged the dynamic of the Chinese context, but few have clearly proposed a successful Chinese paradigm with respect to its unique social, historical and cultural background. It is generally agreed that to construct a Chinese model of media studies is not a total rejection of Western paradigms since common concepts do apply to both kinds of society. As mentioned earlier, most Western theoretical frameworks can be fitted into the technology-media research design, but it can be expected that minor adaptations and combinations would be needed in examining the Chinese case. Given the complicated reality of Chinese media system, Huang’s (2007) paradigm of “from control to negotiation” is convincing in describing the changing media landscape in the 2000s. This approach does not see the state control or the capital control as the dominant or overwhelming force as some have indicated (e.g. Zhao, 1998, Paradise, 2006). Instead, Huang’s model suggests the 2000s as “a period of the start of a transition of media regulation in China from a rigid totalitarian state control model to a state-media-market-society negotiation model” (2007: 405). According to Huang (2007), the concept “negotiation” refers to a bargaining process in which four powers—the state, the media, the market and society—have to consider each other’s interests before making any decision. Admittedly, the four forces are not very even and equal, with the party-state monopolizing the overall political power. However, it deserves attention that the media industry in China is at least not a monopolizing game anymore; “‘control’ is now more often forced to find its way through ‘negotiation’” (Huang, 2007: 405). More broadly, the marketization and globalization of the Chinese economy and media commercialization in particular since the early 1990s can be viewed as a result of negotiation between powers of the

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media, the market and the society. In the digital age, there is probably much less censorship in China than during previous periods. As Ma (2000) describes, on most occasions, tight media controls have given way to policies seeking to stimulate competition, cut down subsidies, promote economic prosperity and streamline organizational media structures. As a result, the role of today’s Chinese media has shifted from a party organ for propaganda to a multiplicity of functions, including educating, entertaining and informing the audience. With the further penetration of the digital media, a few researchers, such as Huang (2001) and Peng (2005, 2006), have acknowledged the proliferating diversification of the popular media-dominated and highly competitive Chinese media market in terms of media forms and media content. A longitudinal review focusing on the trajectory of the internet media’s transformation in China may shed light on obvious changes that have been ignored by studies focusing on the above dominant framework. As He (2003) noted, a number of studies support the contention that the media in China, especially after the emergence of the internet-based media, have shifted from a pure “mouthpiece”, “state propaganda tool”, or “transmission belt” of the Party to an amalgamation of various identities, providing public services, entertainment, and so on.

2.1.4 Sporadic studies on web journalism in China

Drawn from the analysis above, it is evident that China is a rarely studied case regarding the development of the internet as a novel platform for news reporting and transmission, despite the number of Chinese netizens being the largest national total in the world.4 More importantly, it seems that researchers are less interested in the “micro” level of analysis. Among the sporadic research on digital media in China, much attention has been devoted to how the digital media differ from the old media (e.g. Lee, 2003), or how traditional media respond to the demands of an internet market (e.g. He and Zhu, 2002). Few scholarly articles contribute significantly to a

4_{According to the semiofficial China Internet Network Information Centre’s (CNNIC) latest statistical report} (released in January 2010), by the end of 2009, the total number of netizens in China had increased to 384 million, which is the largest in the world. More information concerning the internet profile of China is presented in the following background chapter.

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thorough analysis of the process, progress, problem and promise of web journalism in China. Even fewer have written comparative analyses between Chinese web journalism and Western web journalism.

In addition, a majority of the work discussing Chinese journalism online is on the subject of online newspapers. Articles are aimed at shedding some light on how newspapers respond to the demands of an internet market. Massey and Luo’s (2005) study show that both multimedia content and interactive utilization were rare or not found at 32 online Chinese newspapers. This echoes the finding of He and Zhu’s (2002) study that few internet-based features were presented at the Chinese online newspapers under their analysis. The finding of few or an absence of web-based features among Chinese online newspapers tends to be consistent with that of similar studies in the US (e.g. Tankard and Ban, 1998; Schultz, 1999; Zaharopoulos, 2003; Randazzo and Greer, 2003) and in other Asian countries (e.g. Massey and Levy, 1999). Specific discussion on this issue is elaborated in the literature review of web journalism below.

Concerning previous studies on Chinese journalism online, it is my contention that choosing the online newspaper as the main researching site in studies of Chinese web journalism is both theoretically unconvincing and historically problematic. This approach fails to acknowledge the differences between Chinese and Western media structures. It is another manifestation of the problem of neglecting the unique media context of China. In many Western countries, for quite a long time, popular and authoritative news websites are those operated by traditional big newspapers or those affiliated with national television or radio stations. The New York Times (nytimes.com), the Guardian (guardian.co.uk), the New Zealand Herald (nzherald.co.nz), NBC (msnbc.com), the BBC (bbc.com) and TVNZ (tvnz.co.nz) are a few prominent examples. Reasons behind such a phenomenon are closely related to the brand identity and social position. Those news organizations have long been recognized and accepted by large audiences worldwide, thus it is effortless for them to

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advertise their news websites widely. Moreover, these giant news corporations, without doubt, have all greater resources to better equip their online counterparts and in this way, increasing audiences are guided to either of the corporation’s outlets or, in most cases, to both traditional and online news forms. However, it is a different story in China. The big national press or television stations have not been as active or quick in shifting to the online environment, and have thus failed to attract substantial traffic. Instead, portal sites became places to go for news online. Several commercial internet media organizations are leading the way in Chinese web journalism. Sina.com, Sohu.com, NetEase.com and QQ.com are amongst the most popular news portals in China5 (Alexa, 2008). Thus, I argue that studies on Chinese web journalism should pay attention to those portal sites, instead of solely focusing on online newspapers.

To conclude, all of the discussion above, including the generally sparse literature on internet-based media in China, the dominance of Western media models, the few studies at the micro level of Chinese journalism online and the undeniably huge size of the Chinese internet market, make China a promising site for studies of web journalism. Therefore, this thesis is an attempt to contribute to the diversity of global communication study through examining Chinese web journalism in a global context. Additionally, with regard to the particular emphasis on the political-economic power and the general neglect of social and cultural factors, this thesis tends to locate the research within the Chinese context, paying particular attention to social and cultural dynamics of the Chinese media system and the online environment. The following paragraphs are devoted to a literature review of web journalism studies worldwide.

2.2 Theoretical framework of new media studies

As the fastest growing medium ever recorded, the internet together with the World Wide Web, perhaps represent the most broadly discussed and most significant manifestation of new media. There is much literature contributing to the internet and

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the web as new media.

The technologies that have emerged in recent years, principally but not exclusively digital technologies, are new. They do new things. They give us new powers. They create new consequences for us as human beings. They bend minds. They transform institutions. They liberate. They oppress.

(Silversone, 1999: 10)

Silverstone’s summary in the inaugural issue of the journal New Media and Society offers a provocative starting point concerning the new media. As a buzzword, the term “new media” is actually a vulnerable and relative concept, for new media are soon no longer new in the ever-changing digital era. Many (e.g. Livingstone, 1999; Flew, 2002) question the temptation to simply list the latest media technology developments and call them new, for it is an inadequate and quickly dated approach. What makes Silverstone’s contention so interesting is that his argument does not halt there—if it did, it would be an approach of old-style technological determinism. It is not difficult to simplify new media either in utopian or dystopian means, as Silverstone indicates; it is more important and, of course, not simple to seek the “relationship between continuity and change”, and to investigate the “complexities of innovation as both a technological and a social process” (Silverstone, 1999: 10). In other words, rather than simply ask “what are the new media”, it is more meaningful to ask “what’s new for society about the new media?” (Livingstone, 1999: 60). A good many scholars suggest looking beyond the “newness” in new media and propose to analyze the “newness” of new media with regard to their social and cultural contexts. Echoing this point of view, Flew takes a broad social approach towards new media and highlights the importance of being aware of “how the mediation of communications through technological forms renders communications a form of social practice” (2002: 2). For Flew, the ability to download videos from the internet has been an example of qualitatively “new” media, not so much because it changes the form, but because “it changes the means of distribution and storage, and the associated business models, of

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these media” (2002: 2).

To further explore this issue, Lievrouw and Livingstone’s (2002) proposal deserves discussion here. Three aspects, according to Lievrouw and Livingstone, need to be considered in any research concerning the new media:

the artefacts or devices that enable and extend our ability to communicate;

the communication activities and practices we engage in to develop and use these devices; the social arrangements and organizations that form around these devices and practices.

(Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2002: 7)

Being advocated by many media scholars, Lievrouw and Livingstone’s three-element framework of new media has sensitized analysts to the interdependence between media technologies and social elements, which is the concentration of this thesis. In light of such a definition, technologies are indeed infrastructural, in that they combine other elements as well, such as the communication practices and social organizations. It is essential to explore means in which new media both resemble and differ from the old, in their social and cultural contexts and to analyze the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change. This point of view is crucial to the study of new media, while has been neglected in a number of previous studies on Chinese internet-based media, as revealed in the previous literature review.

The “artefacts or devices that enable and extend our ability to communicate” are essential elements of the digital media and thus are the main research objects of this study. A traits-based approach has been widely adopted regarding this aspect. Feldman (1997: 3) claims that when turning into the bits of 0s and 1s as the digital form, information becomes “manipulable” (easy to change), “networkable” (can be shared between many and afar), “dense” (storage of large amount of information), “compressible” (can be compressed and decompressed), and “impartial” (any and all media treated the same). All of the information on the internet is in digital form and

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therefore captures all the above features. As widely noted, the internet is shorthand for a handful of “different media and modalities” that “make it perhaps the most complex and plural of the electronic media yet invented” (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2002: 6). Then the World Wide Web, which is of great importance in the popularization of the internet, has its own features that enable and extend the ability for communication. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain pictures, videos, texts and other multimedia. Thus, journalism on the web is similar to other media forms, but differs significantly in the way it is presented. Web journalism can have “the depth and breadth of newspapers, the immediacy of radios, the typography and resolution of slick magazines and television’s ability to make us eyewitnesses to events” (Carlson, 2003: 53). Then through hyperlinks, one can navigate between various contents on the web pages by simple point-and-click. The availability of search engines offers an easy means for internet users to search information from vast databases. More importantly, nowadays, the emergence and development of Web 2.0 features have reinforced the internet and the web’s potentials. Using the web as a platform, Web 2.0 re-visualizes the internet from perspectives of both the developer and the user, giving each of them innovative ways to use the internet. Web 2.0 websites have an “architecture of participation” that encourages internet users to add value to the application as they use it (O’Reilly, 2005). Web 2.0 features enable users to go beyond just viewing and retrieving information; they facilitate users to interact with contents already created and to generate new contents. To personalize or customize web pages according to the individual tastes becomes possible and popular. The “Daily Me”, coined by Negroponte (1995), seems not a myth any more. Moreover, enabled by wikis, blogs and discussion forums, various types of collaboration have emerged on Web 2.0 systems, aiming at harnessing collective intelligence and enhancing social networks.

More precisely, the artefacts or devices play a central role in digital presentation and thus web journalism differs from traditional journalism significantly in the way it is presented. A few academic books concerning this respect are listed below to sketch a general image within this area. Beginning with a clear explanation of how online and

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print news differ, Ward’s book Journalism online (2002) explains what makes journalism online distinctive. The range and amount of sources that one can access and the ability to tap into debates and discussions, together with features of immediacy, multimedia, archiving, interactivity and flexible delivery platforms are making journalism online standout (Ward, 2002). Along similar lines, in Digital

journalism: Emerging media and the changing horizons of journalism, Kawamoto

(2003) emphasizes the central role of digital presentation in the communication process. He contends that the distinct characteristics of the digital media, namely, hypertextuality, interactivity, nonlinearity, multimedia, convergence, customization and personalization, enable flexibility and creativity that a lot of traditional news formats would constrain. Web journalism: Practice and promise of a new medium written by Stovall (2004), offers discussions of the traditional practices of journalism, such as reporting, editing, design, and photojournalism, while presenting how the unique features of the web—capacity, immediacy, flexibility, permanency, and interactivity—provide new storytelling potentials. In short, web journalism is considered to have a good many prioritized merits as compared with print or broadcasting journalism.

Moreover, the theory of remediation proposed by Bolter and Grusin (1999) deserves attention here. As the so claimed “defining characteristic of the new digital media” (1999: 45), the term “remediation” is interpreted as “the formal logic by which new media technologies refashion prior media forms” (1999: 273). The theoretical framework of “remediation” has been widely noted as an apparent effort to revise McLuhan’s seminal work Understanding media (1964) for the digital media context. Bolter and Grusin propose to de-mythicize new media forms: “as a digital network, cyberspace remediates the electric communications networks of the past 150 years … cyberspace refashions and extends earlier media, which are themselves embedded in material and social environments” (1999: 183). For Bolter and Grusin, the internet networks are able to remediate all existing media forms into one platform. More significantly, with the development of the Web 2.0 features, cyberspace has the power

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to radically transform previous media genres and establish new possibilities of social relationships and connections (Tai, 2006), as exemplified in the cases of blogs, wikis and discussion forums.

With characteristics mentioned above, the internet together with the web has not only enhanced the conventional one-to-many communication model, but also has fostered brand new communication genres, in which “users’ messages can be sent by a heterogeneous user base to a heterogeneous audience” (Tai, 2006: 162). In the internet-mediated communication, every internet user is potentially a viewer as well as a creator. As the internet becomes a web of interconnected nodes where users can be both message receivers and senders in the communication cycle, another trend of research arises, focusing on how the structure of information flows on the internet affects the role of traditional journalists. Newhagen describes the traditional mass media architecture as the hourglass shape that “facilitates a power imbalance between message producers and receivers” (1998: 117). The traditional journalists are at the narrowest point of the hour glass and thus “in a position of power over their clientele” (1998: 117). For Newhagen, this kind of system architecture may not exist on the internet; the architecture in cyberspace “may lend itself to more parity between communication participants” (1998: 117). Therefore, some claim that “journalists are vulnerable to losing their franchise as gatekeepers of news” (Williams, 1998: 34). Nevertheless, I would be cautious in suggesting that gatekeeping, as one of traditional journalists’ principal traits, disappears in the online environment. Rather, gatekeeping has evolved to “commercial gatekeeping” (Hargittai, 2004), “gatewatching” (Bruns, 2003, 2005) or even “gate-opening” (Boczkowski, 2000). Such a digital communication environment offers the potential to shift communication from “allocution” to “consultation”, as Bardoel (1996: 287) observes. Some scholars (e.g. Kawamoto, 1998; Gillmor, 2004) indicate that the traditional function of simply mediating between news events and news consumers now is developed to incorporate tasks more geared to facilitating various information search, content generation, and information exchange actions by and among users.

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Instead of talking about new possibilities of the internet alone, discussion of strengths and drawbacks of the internet would be required to paint a more realistic picture. This school of analysis takes practical contexts into account while elaborating the artefacts and devices. It points to the third aspect of Lievrouw and Livingstone’s new media theory that focuses on the social contexts around the devices and practices. Ryder and Wilson’s (1996) elaboration on “affordances” and “constraints” of the internet is quite comprehensive in this regard and is very useful as a guideline for internet studies. Many have cited or summarized their findings. According to Ryder and Wilson, firstly, the internet offers the potential to access unprecedented amounts of information from multiple sources and the opportunity for free expression, while the participation is limited in practice by literacy, affordability of access and differing communicative competencies. Secondly, barriers such as ethnicity, gender, and age are weaker in the online environment, but the cultural dominance of middle-class white males is obvious. Thirdly, as the network and information grow, the value of participation grows exponentially, but so do the security threats and privacy concerns. Fourthly, the internet provides opportunities to access multiple and interconnected forms of information by hypertexts, while the problem of being “lost in cyberspace” arises in the face of the non-linear browsing. Additionally, though the multiple sources of information are able to augment single sources of information and to compare conflicting points of view, the concern of value and validity from various sources becomes prominent in the absence of filters and gatekeepers. Moreover, the online environment is noteworthy for its current and timely information, but is at some risk of less stable information. For example, the information may be removed or the sites are no longer functional when you want to retrieve the information. Last but not least, the internet is able to create intimacy and locality to some extent, while has difficulties in maintaining remote associations and variances between “online” and “offline” personas. Ryder and Wilson’s discussion portrays a general picture of the internet utilization that may roughly hold water in any internet environment, while they are far from precise and complete in specific cyber contexts. Only with close

The Chinese Approach To Web Journalism: A Comparative Analysis